Gender differences in friendship patterns

The same-sex and opposite-sex friendship patterns of men and women students from two first-year psychology classes at the University of Waikato in New Zealand were examined. A friendship questionnaire previously used in the United States of America was administered to compare results of the two cultures. Findings from this study support American research suggesting that women are more intimate and emotional in their same-sex friendships than men, and tend to place a higher value on these friendships than men do. In accordance with findings of the American sample, New Zealand women emphasized talking, emotional sharing, and discussing personal problems with their same-sex friends, and men showed an emphasis on sharing activities and doing things with their men friends. Differences between the American and New Zealand samples were shown for men in the number of friends and the intimacy levels of these friendships. New Zealand men preferred numerous but less intimate same-sex friends, while women (as in the United States) showed a preference for a few, close, intimate same-sex friends. Men, in contrast to women, derived emotional support and therapeutic value more from their opposite-sex relationships than their same-sex friendships. Finally, more men than women stated they would not cancel an engagement with an opposite-sex friend in order to go out with a same-sex friend. Results are interpreted as suggesting a need for changes in the current socialization process of males who are taught to repress their emotions and form rather less intimate and possibly less beneficial same-sex friendships than women.     

The impact of receiving a positive HIV antibody test: Factors associated with the response

In a recent interview study 265 gay men who were HIV postive were asked about their views and experiences of a whole range of health, social and voluntary services. Included in the interview were questions related to the experience of receiving a positive test result and their reaction to being given a diagnosis.The nature of people's reactions to being told they were positive were complex and in spite of making an intellectual adjustment, the reality of hearing the news was often quite different. There appear to be close parallels in the ways people react to hearing news about their HIV status and other disease categories. Satifaction with the way the result was communicated and the sufficiency of information available at different times were associated with the way people responded, as was how long people had to wait for their result once the blood had been taken.The process of HIV antibody testing provides and opportunity to identify possible interventions to promote adaptation to a stressful medical event.     

HyperCard administration of a block-design task

HyperCard (Atkinson, 1987) is a new development environment for the Macintosh that shows promise for use in psychological research and testing. In this paper, we discuss the development of HyperCard stackware with which a block-design task similar to that of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R) can be administered. The reliability and validity of the computerized block-design task was evaluated by administering both the computerized task and the WAIS-R subtest to college undergraduates. Results indicated that the computerized task’s reliability compared favorably with that of the WAIS-R subtest. Validity coefficients were equivocal; although an elapsed-time measure showed moderate correlation between the tasks, the numbers of designs correctly completed in each condition were not significantly correlated.     

SERIOUS DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR AS PART OF A SIGNIFICANTLY HANDICAPPING CONDITION: CURES AND SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENTS

The past 20 years have been productive ones for the field of applied behavior analysis. A brief review of our own efforts during this period reveals that we have accomplished several but not all of our goals for the Teaching-Family approach. In this context, we note that the setting of realistic and appropriate goals is important for the field and for society. Moreover, we suggest that the realistic goal for some persons with serious delinquent behavior may be extended supportive and socializing treatment rather than permanent cure from conventional short-term treatment programs. We base this suggestion on the accumulating evidence that serious delinquent behavior may often be part of a significantly disabling and durable condition that consists of multiple antisocial and dysfunctional behaviors, often runs in families, and robustly eludes effective short-term treatment. Like other significant disabilities such as retardation, autism, and blindness, the effects of this condition may be a function of an interaction of environmental and constitutional variables. We argue that our field has the wherewithal to construct effective and humane long-term supportive environments for seriously delinquent youths. In this regard, we explore the dimensions, rationales, logistics, and beginnings of a new treatment direction that involves long-term supportive family treatment. We contend that such supportive families may be able to provide long, perhaps even lifetime, socializing influences through models, values, and contingencies that seem essential for developing and maintaining prosocial behavior in these high-risk youths.     

Time went by so slowly: Overestimation of event duration by males and females

In three experiments, 469 subjects watched a short videotape of a bank robbery and later estimated the duration of the tape. Subjects invariably overestimated the durations. Accuracy of time estimation was unrelated to amount of free recall (Experiment 1) or accuracy of memory (Experiment 2). Females overestimated to a greater degree than males (Experiments 2 and 3). A more stressful version of the event produced greater overestimates than a less stressful version (Experiment 3). The relationship between induced arousal and time estimation appears to be different for men and women.     

Differences that suggest female investment in,and male distance from,children

A factorial between subjects experiment was conducted with sex of respondent, level of success, sex of stimulus parent, and sex of stimulus child as the independent variables. Two hundred seventy-two undergraduates without parenting experience constituted the sample. The attributions made to explain parenting success/failure and the ratings made both of the child and the parent on the same 60 personality item were the dependent variables. Female respondents were not only especially success-oriented, but evidenced a view of parenting emphasizing deliberation and skill, whereas their male counterparts were comparatively more inclined to explain failure in terms of it being the child's fault and to overstate a child's meanness.This investigation was completed on the first author's NIMH traineeship (5 T01 MH-14473) for doctoral study. The authors are appreciative of the contributions of Professors Donn Byrne, Kay Deaux, and William Martin to the development of this study.     

Was Marx an ethical humanist?

Zusammenfassung Während der letzten zehn Jahre wurde viel über den Humanismus des jungen Marx gesprochen. Osteuropäische Marxisten, die bemüht sind, ihren Anti-Stalinismus durch Berufung auf die Autorität von Marx selbst zu untermauern, gebrauchen den Ausdruck Humanismus in einem ungenauen Sinn, etwa gleichbedeutend mit Anthropozentrismus. Aber wenn man sagt, daß Marx Haltung anthropozentrisch sei, so sind damit die Hauptfragen erst gestellt, nicht schon gelöst.Humanismus mag etwa soviel wie Säkularismus bedeuten — der Mensch, nicht Gott, wird als im Mittelpunkt stehend gedacht. Die anthropozentrische Haltung kann verschiedene Formen annehmen, vor allem die Formen, die man als Humanismus der Ideale und als Humanismus der Prinzipien bezeichnen könnte. Der Humanismus der Ideale ist ausdrücklich an derZukunft orientiert, der Humanismus der Prinzipien aber an derGegenwart. Nur ein Humanismus der Prinzipien, dem es darum geht, den Eigenwert existierender Individuen zu behaupten und zu verteidigen, verdient es, ethischer Humanismus genannt zu werden. Marx, sogar der jüngste Marx, war kein ethischer Humanist in diesem Sinn. Und nur ein Humanismus in diesem strengen Sinn würde einen philosophischen Standort bieten, von dem aus man den Stalinismus oder Neo-Stalinismus angreifen könnte.Marx war ein Säkularist, und er entwarf ein humanistisches Ideal für die Zukunft, aber humanistische Prinzipien für die Gegenwart lehnte er ab. Er betonte, daß nur dem nicht entfremdeten, produktiven Individuum der kommunistischen Zukunft ein eigener Wert zukomme. Bis dahin haben Individuen nur einen geschichtlich instrumentalen Wert: jene, die an der Verwirklichung der kommunistischen Gesellschaft arbeiten, sind zu respektieren; diejenigen, welche dabei Widerstand leisten oder versagen, müssen ausschließlich als Hindernisse auf dem Wege des geschichtlichen Fortschritts behandelt werden.In diesem Sinn ist der Leninismus und sogar der Stalinismus und Neo-Stalinismus in dem zukunftsorientierten Humanismus der Ideale des jungen Marx einbegriffen, oder zumindest davon nicht ausgeschlossen. Selbst der jüngste Marx machte sich den Modeirrtum des 19. Jahrhunderts zu eigen — den Irrtum des aufgeschobenen Wertes oder des zeitlich verstellten Wertes und nahm damit eine mit dem ethischen Humanismus grundsätzlich unvereinbare Position ein.

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An earlier, and much shorter, version of this paper was read at a session on Marxism and Humanism at the Fourteenth International Philosophy Congress in Vienna, September 4, 1968, and published in Vol. II of the Congress Proceedings, Vienna, 1968, pp. 69–73.     

A synthesis of two factor analyses of intermediate algebra

A battery of 18 tests of intermediate algebra and 20 reference tests was administered to two successive second-year algebra classes. Each battery was separately factor analyzed by Thurstone methods, and the two analyses were synthesized by the Tucker method. The five congruent factors obtained were identified as: Verbal Comprehension, Deductive Reasoning, Algebraic Manipulative Skill, Number Ability, and Adaptability to a New Task.This paper is a condensation of a thesis. The work was begun while the author was a Psychometrics Fellow of the Educational Testing Service. The work was further supported by Contract N6onr-270-20 of the Office of Naval Research and by Grant NSF G-642 of the National Science Foundation. The writer is indebted to Professors Harold Gulliksen and Ledyard R Tucker for their guidance throughout this study.